I'm glad Snopes has picked this up as I was getting fed up having to link to my own post about this - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029852049 - every time I saw somebody bring it up over the last couple of days.
I believe I can quote four paras from Snopes without falling foul of DU's fair usage rules:
This image was not staged (at least not to Tweeden’s knowledge or consent), nor was it taken during the rehearsal of the USO skit. Tweeden stated that this picture was taken “without my consent” and “while I was asleep.”
It is highly unlikely that a genuine quote from the person who took this photograph is currently available, as the photographer’s identity is unknown at the time of this writing. It was initially reported (in a since deleted
Link to tweet" target="_blank">tweet) that Franken’s brother may have been the one who took the picture, but Owen Franken denied this.
It should also be noted that the Twitter account that posted this fake quote has pushed
misinformation before. And while we can’t definitively say what motivated them to spread this fake quote, we can say that pointing to a woman’s sexual history or clothing choices (which this account did by including an unrelated picture of Tweeden in a bikini), is a common tactic used to prevent women from coming forward with stories of sexual abuse by laying the
blame on the
victim and saying, without saying, that the victim “
deserved” to be assaulted.
The person who took the picture of Al Franken and Leeann Tweeden has not been identified, nor have they issued a statement regarding the incident. Which means there is no credible claim the image was staged, that Tweeden was “playing dead,” or that “she wanted him to ‘revive’ her” in the picture. This quote was made up out of the whole cloth in an apparent attempt to discredit Tweeden and her account.
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